Thoughts on classical music in London, on the web and beyond. By Gavin Dixon.

Monday, 24 November 2014

Alfred Schnittke at 80

Today
would have been Alfred Schnittke’s 80th birthday. He didn’t live to see it of
course; he died in 1998 following a decade of desperately poor health. But he’s
still with us in spirit. His music has gone up and down in popularity since his
death, but it has never disappeared. In fact, a handful of his works, covering
a variety of genres, have achieved central positions in the repertoire. His
historical status is secure.

Schnittke has always been a controversial figure. In the years since his death,
the new music world has increasingly polarised into conservative and
progressive tendencies. Composers of tonal neo-Romantic music have been embraced
by the establishment (at least in the English-speaking world) and no longer
feel the need to make excuses or highbrow theoretical justifications for what
they do. Schnittke is not among that company, but for many of his critics, the
concept of polystylism is just such a justification, an intellectual disguise
for reactionary tendencies.

He really belongs with the Modernists. But today’s advocates of Frankfurt
School progressive values are increasingly besieged and isolated, and have
little time for a composer who was very consciously at the edge of that world.
In fact, Schnittke actively sought to destabilise the progressive paradigm, to
challenge its insularity and claims to superiority. So perhaps it is of little
surprise that he has ended up largely excluded from what remains of it.
Schnittke came to global attention in the mid-1980s. He was the right man at
the right time for the classical music world. Just as organisations –
orchestras and record labels in particular – began to acknowledge the cultural
stagnation they were causing through the continual recycling of an Imaginary
Museum of Musical Works, Schnittke provided a revealing, and damning,
self-image through which to play out that Angst. The whole phenomenon was a
process, a fast one at that, and transience was inevitable. Another problem was
the marketing line that presented Schnittke as the heir to Shostakovich, a
valid comparison in some ways, but one with little relevance past the fall of
the Soviet Union.

The fact that Schnittke lived and worked through the Soviet times has added an
extra dimension to the debates about progression and reaction, populism and
artistic worth. The American scholar Peter J. Schmelz argues that Schnittke’s
advocates push his dissidence too far, and that his use of tonal idioms aligns
Schnittke’s music with state cultural policy. Put crudely, polystylism is
Socialist Realism.

It is a provocative polemic that contains a good deal of unhelpful exaggeration
itself. Listening to Russian academics railing against this view brings back
unwelcome memories of the Shostakovich Testimony debate, though it is unlikely
to come to that. But Schmelz’s argument demonstrates how difficult it is to
untangle the cultural politics of music written in Soviet times. Schnittke’s
own political views were conservative, though he would probably use the term
“traditional” himself, but his artistic outlook was not. He was much like
Stravinsky, determined to retain and promote established cultural values, but
in radical ways.
Perhaps that is why Schnittke’s reputation is so complex today, and so
different in different parts of the world. In Russia, he is still a central
figure in new music, but different generations approach his music with
different agendas. However indifferent he himself felt about the political
struggles of the 1980s, his music became a symbol of resistance, and many in
Russia still hear it in those terms. That has caused a generation divide, with
many younger musicians treating Schnittke as music of the Soviet past, with little
relevance to the new Russia. On the other hand, the explicitly religious music
he was writing (often covertly) from the 1970s parallels the resurgence of the
Orthodox Church, creating a continuity into modern times.

In the West, Schnittke remains closely connected with the Russian diaspora. His
global reputation was established by leading Soviet musicians touring his music
in the 1980s, particularly Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet
and Mark Lubotsky. Another important name here is Mstislav Rostropovich,
already living in the West, but as keen as any of his colleagues in Russia to
promote Schnittke’s work.

Many performers of Schnittke’s generation continue to champion his music. Their
recorded legacy is also formidable. Almost all of Schnittke’s major works have
extensive discographies, and in many cases the benchmark recording is the
first, with the dedicatees providing versions that have yet to be surpassed.

Younger performers needn’t lose heart though. Schnittke’s music demands interpretation,
it needs performers who can give individuality and emotion (another factor that
puts it at the peripheries of Modernism). There are many significant textual
issues with Schnittke’s scores, because whenever a performer suggested a change
in rehearsal, he invariably said yes. He wasn’t interested in performers simply
giving a presentation of the notes on the page, he expected them to live the
music and to reimagine it in every performance. As a result, the recorded
legacy of the music’s first performers is not definitive, whatever its quality.
Performers continue to be drawn to Schnittke’s music for just this reason, and
every new performance and recording has something different to say about it.

Some lament the passing of Schnittke’s period of extreme popularity, and it is
a great shame that his orchestral music is not played more. But, from the sheer
number and quality of recent recordings, it is clear that his solo, chamber and
choral music is as popular as ever. Schnittke’s legacy remains complex, with
scholars and commentators likely to debate its significance and value for years
to come, but the music itself lives on because it continues to inspire and
engage musicians from one generation to the next.

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Gavin Dixon is a writer, journalist, editor and blogger specialising in classical music. He writes reviews and articles for a number of publications and websites. Gavin has a PhD on the Symphonies of Alfred Schnittke and is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is also a member of the editorial team behind the ‘Alfred Schnittke Collected Works’ edition, which recently began publication in St Petersburg. More information on Gavin’s writing activities can be found at his website: www.gavindixon.info